Jerry Lawson (engineer)

Lore & Background

Lawson was born in Brooklyn, New York City, on December 1, 1940. His father was a longshoreman with an interest in science, and his mother worked for the city and served on the Parent-Teachers Association. His grandfather had studied to become a physicist but worked as a postmaster. Encouraged by his parents and a first-grade teacher, Lawson pursued scientific hobbies including ham radio and chemistry. At age 13, he earned an amateur radio license and built his own station. He earned money repairing television sets and attended Queens College and City College of New York without completing a degree.

In 1970, Lawson joined Fairchild Semiconductor in San Francisco as an applications engineering consultant. He created an unreleased coin-operated video game called Demolition Derby in his garage, completed in early 1975 using Fairchild's F8 microprocessors. In the mid-1970s, as Chief Hardware Engineer and Director of Engineering and Marketing for Fairchild's video game division, he led development of the Fairchild Channel F console, released in 1976. The console used swappable game cartridges based on technology licensed from Alpex. Lawson's team refined the technology to allow games stored on removable ROM cartridges to be inserted and removed repeatedly without electric shock. The Channel F featured an 8-way joystick designed by Lawson and a pause button, a first for home consoles. While at Fairchild, Lawson was a member of the Homebrew Computer Club and interviewed Steve Wozniak for a position but did not hire him.

In 1980, Lawson left Fairchild and founded Videosoft, a video game development company that made software for the Atari 2600. Videosoft did not release any games, though incomplete titles were saved and distributed to collectors in 2010. The company closed about five years later, and Lawson took on consulting work. He collaborated with Stevie Wonder on a 'Wonder Clock' that never reached production, and later worked with the Stanford mentor program while preparing to write a book on his career.

Reader's Guide

Lawson's legacy centers on his role as the father of the video game cartridge. Although Alpex created removable ROM cartridges, Lawson's team at Fairchild ensured their safe use and longevity for consumer game consoles, leading to the cartridge-based model that defined the home video game industry. The Fairchild Channel F was not commercially successful, but its cartridge approach was popularized by the Atari 2600 in 1977. In March 2011, Lawson was honored as an industry pioneer by the International Game Developers Association. He died of complications from diabetes on April 9, 2011, about one month after that honor. Posthumously, he received the ID@Xbox Gaming Heroes award at the 21st Independent Games Festival on March 20, 2019. A permanent display of his contributions exists at the World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. The Los Angeles Unified School District named Elementary School #11 the Gerald A. Lawson Academy of the Arts, Mathematics and Science. The Gerald A. Lawson Fund was established in May 2021 by the University of Southern California's Games Program and Take-Two Interactive to support black and indigenous students pursuing careers in the video game industry. An interactive Google Doodle on December 1, 2022, celebrated what would have been his 82nd birthday, allowing users to make and edit games.

Did You Know?

• Lawson earned his amateur radio license at age 13 and built his own station at home.
• Lawson interviewed Steve Wozniak for a position at Fairchild but did not hire him.